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He’d been staying at Claire’s with Nathan and Sarah while she was in the hospital, but now that she was home we were going to stay at Rex’s cabin. Since Rex owned it outright, he and Daniel had decided to keep it in the hopes of visiting there sometimes. That’s what Rex said, anyway. I got the sense that Daniel was comforted by the idea of keeping all their options open in case the Temple job didn’t work out. Or (unspoken always, but clearly a fear of his) in case they didn’t work out.
We drove in silence, the back of Will’s right hand resting lazily on his knee so he was steering with two fingers, his left elbow propped against the window. It was how he always drove, all the power and speed of a ton of metal and mechanics controlled by the touch of two fingertips.
We’d driven this route often when he’d been in Holiday, since I couldn’t skateboard on the dirt roads strewn with pine needles that led to Rex’s cabin. The first time I’d ridden in the car with him, I was so nervous I couldn’t stop babbling about nothing, bouncing my knees and running curious fingers along parts of the car’s interior just to be doing something, interacting with an extension of Will in some way.
Now, I sat still and silent as the familiar streets of Holiday branched out around us. How could someplace I’d lived my whole life feel so foreign?
How could Will feel the most like home of anything in Holiday?
The cabin revealed itself through the pine boughs, and I felt a rush of longing that Daniel and Rex would be inside when we opened the door, Marilyn trotting up to greet us. Daniel would be sitting at the table, papers strewn out around him, a pained expression on his face and one of Rex’s mom’s old records playing in the background.
Rex would be in the kitchen making dinner and, every now and then, coming up behind Daniel and squeezing his shoulders or running a hand through his hair. Daniel would lean back, press his head to Rex’s stomach, maybe tilt his head back for a kiss. When we’d walk in, Daniel would gesture helplessly at his stack of papers as if one of us could explain why his students tortured him by not writing better essays, and Rex would raise his eyebrows at us slightly, and usher us into the kitchen so we could keep him company as he cooked. He’d cast a glance back at Daniel before following us, affection clear on his face even if Daniel never looked up.
But it was dark and silent, just the bones of the life that was once lived there.
Will made a fire and turned on the heat as I brought our bags inside. Daniel and Rex hadn’t gotten around to getting more furniture for the cabin yet, so all that was left in the living room was the plaid couch and a card table, and in the bedroom an uninflated air mattress and linens.
The first time I’d come here it struck me as everything that a home should be. The best combination of comfortable and functional, warm and spare.
Now, though, where I really wanted to be was at Will’s apartment. Surrounded by Will’s drafting table and seemingly unending supply of pencils, his five hundred white T-shirts and coffee-table books that weren’t on the coffee table. His sweaters and soft sheets and shampoo that all smelled like him. And the small spaces that I thought of as mine: the desk next to Will’s drafting table where I studied, the corner of the counter where I always leaned while he made coffee, the left side of the bed.
Fire made, Will and I stood awkwardly, facing each other.
“Can we…?” He held his arms out tentatively, and I went into them like they were gravity.
If I’d thought his touch would have lost its power I was wrong. I softened against him, and he melted into me too. We kept each other upright, two masses exerting equal force on one another. He held me so close, squeezed me so tight, held on for so long, that when we separated it felt like being torn apart.
I could feel his warmth even when he wasn’t touching me, like a slight electrical charge in the places between us.
We ordered pizza and slumped onto the couch, neither of us speaking.
“I can’t believe you came here,” Will finally muttered. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He fidgeted for a minute, then grabbed a piece of pizza and shoved it in his mouth like he was trying to keep himself from saying anything else. I studied him, conducting an experiment. Trying to figure out if, after everything, Will still had as much power over me as ever.
Everything about him still called out to me, the distance between us practically painful. But there was a fragility about the moment that stopped me from touching him. What would he do if I closed it? What would it do to me?
